kcwellsch@watmath.waterloo.edu (Ken Wellsch) (11/16/90)
How much of 2bsd could be available free like what has been happening with 4.3BSD-4.4BSD? I suspect the ever dwindling number of 11's out there makes the hassles of verifying with AT&T what is not "AT&T code" is not worth the bother. Too bad, I don't have a source license.
sms@lonex.radc.af.mil (Steven M. Schultz) (11/17/90)
In article <1990Nov15.165900.3481@watmath.waterloo.edu> kcwellsch@watmath.waterloo.edu (Ken Wellsch) writes: >How much of 2bsd could be available free like what has been happening >with 4.3BSD-4.4BSD? I suspect the ever dwindling number of 11's out >there makes the hassles of verifying with AT&T what is not "AT&T code" >is not worth the bother. Too bad, I don't have a source license. alas, not much. there are bits and pieces of the kernel (mostly in the networking area) and a number of the applications (ftp, rsh, rcp, login, and so on) which i've ported from the 'liberated' 4.3 sources - but no where near enough to even begin to build a system with. also, even 4.4 isn't rid of the scourge of AT&T (yet) the last i heard. even if a port were done to the 11 of a "liberated" Unix(tm) i doubt the 11'ers could afford the lawyers to proof it. *sigh* cities, states, countries recognize "historical landmarks" and grant all manner of special privileges, etc - it would sure be nice if the source license restriction would be lifted or eased for those who want to use the machine that played a major role in the life of Unix. Any resemblance of the current Unix on a pdp11 to what it was when at&t "supported" the pdp11 (didn't even implement UMR handling) is unlikely, but the restrictions remain in place. oh, i just took delivery of my own 11/73 yesterday - nifty machine! Steven M. Schultz sms@wlv.imsd.contel.com (TDY at sms@lonex.radc.af.mil)
dhesi%cirrusl@oliveb.ATC.olivetti.com (Rahul Dhesi) (11/21/90)
In <1990Nov17.041611.1213@lonex.radc.af.mil> sms@lonex.radc.af.mil (Steven M. Schultz) writes: > *sigh* cities, states, countries recognize "historical landmarks" > and grant all manner of special privileges, etc - it would sure > be nice if the source license restriction would be lifted or eased > for those who want to use the machine that played a major role in the > life of Unix. Maybe we could begin a letter-writing campaign asking AT&T to place /bin/true in the public domain, so we can freely use the algorithms used therein? That would be a good initial step towards making the rest of UNIX more accessible to all. The current implementation appears to be covered by *both* copyright and trade secret. Until them, here's my own implementation of /bin/true. I have created by after carefully reverse-engineering AT&T's version. --cut here--cut here--cut here--beginning of /bin/true --cut here--cut here--cut here--end of /bin/true -- Rahul Dhesi <dhesi%cirrusl@oliveb.ATC.olivetti.com> UUCP: oliveb!cirrusl!dhesi